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Israel Fires Into Syria After Mortar Hits Military Post Israel Fires Into Syria After Shell Hits Post
(about 11 hours later)
JERUSALEM — Israel was drawn into the Syrian civil war for the first time on Sunday, firing warning shots into the neighboring country after a stray mortar shell fired from Syrian territory hit an Israeli military post. SDEROT, Israel — Israel confronted fire along two of its borders on Sunday, with rockets landing from Gaza and a mortar shell crashing in from Syria, prompting Israel to respond with what its military described as “warning shots” at a Syrian position across the frontier for the first time in 39 years.
The Israeli military said the mortar fire caused no injuries or damage at the post in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war and then annexed. But in recent weeks, incidents of errant fire from Syria have multiplied, leading Israel to warn that it holds Syria responsible for fire on Israeli-held territory. From the early hours of Sunday morning through nightfall, more than 50 rockets fired by Palestinian militants from Gaza struck southern Israel. The first heavy barrage came as residents of this rocket-battered town near the Gaza border were getting up to go to work and school.
Speaking to his Cabinet on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is “closely monitoring” the border with Syria and is “ready for any development.” Around noon, to the north, a stray Syrian mortar shell hit an Israeli military post on the Israeli-held Golan Heights as Syrian government forces battled armed rebels on the other side of the Israeli-Syrian armistice line that has been in place for decades. It was the fourth time in just over a week that spillover from the Syrian civil war had crept toward Israel.
An army spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, said Israel answered the Sunday’s mortar shell “with a warning shot toward Syrian areas.” After years of relative quiet along the country’s borders, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finds himself tested on two fronts. Under increasing pressure and with Israelis scheduled to go the polls in January, the nation’s leaders are talking tough and threatening broader action.
“We understand this was a mistake,” the spokeswoman said, “and was not meant to target Israel and then that is why we fired a warning shot in retaliation.” “The world needs to understand that Israel will not sit idly by in the face of attempts to attack us,” Mr. Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday morning. “We are prepared to intensify the response.”
The Israeli military also said it had filed a complaint through United Nations forces operating in the area, stating that “fire emanating from Syria into Israel will not be tolerated and shall be responded to with severity.” Israeli defense officials have made it clear that Israel has no desire to get involved in the fighting in Syria. Israel already filed complaints with the United Nations observer force that monitors the armistice agreement reached between the Israeli and Syrian forces after the 1973 war, and the United Nations has warned that the spreading violence could jeopardize the cease-fire between the two countries.
Israel and Syria are bitter foes who have fought several wars, but their shared border has been mostly quiet since a 1974 cease-fire. Still, Israel worries that Syria’s civil war could spill across into the Golan, and repeated errant fire has intensified that concern. “We hope they get the message this time,” Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s minister of strategic affairs, told Israeli television, referring to the missile fired at a Syrian mortar battery.
Israel fears that if the government of President Bashar al-Assad is toppled, Syria could fall into the hands of Islamic extremists or descend into sectarian warfare, destabilizing the region. But while Israel views the fire from Syria as unintentional, though still unacceptable, the rockets from Gaza are deliberately aimed at population centers. Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls the Palestinian coastal enclave, has claimed credit for participating in several recent rounds of rocket fire.
Israeli officials do not see Mr. Assad trying to intentionally draw Israel into the fighting, but have raised the possibility of his targeting Israel in an act of desperation. They also fear that Syria’s stockpile of weapons could slip into the hands of militant groups. Officials also worry that the frontier region could turn into a lawless area like Egypt’s Sinai Desert, which Islamic militants use as a launching ground for strikes against southern Israel. The latest surge began on Saturday when Palestinian militants fired an antitank missile at an Israeli military jeep patrolling Israel’s increasingly volatile border with Gaza, wounding four soldiers. Four Palestinian civilians were killed when Israel returned fire with tank or artillery shells, prompting new rocket fire against southern Israel. At least one Palestinian militant from a rocket-launching squad was killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Responding to years of rocket attacks, Israel carried out a three-week offensive against the militant groups in Gaza in the winter of 2008-9, resulting in an informal and shaky cease-fire. After three civilians were wounded by shrapnel in the Sderot area early Sunday morning, Silvan Shalom, a vice prime minister from Mr. Netanyahu’s conservative Likud Party, said that Israel was “not eager” to embark on another major ground operation in Gaza, but that the military was prepared to act. Yisrael Katz, another Likud minister, called for the liquidation of the Hamas leadership in Gaza and said that Israel should stop supplying the enclave with water, electricity, food and fuel.
In a statement, the defense minister, Ehud Barak, said that the military had been “evaluating a host of options for harsher responses against Hamas and the other terror organizations in Gaza” and that “it is Hamas that will pay the heavy price, a price that will be painful.”
In Sderot, residents were told to stay close to fortified rooms and bomb shelters. School was canceled. A factory in the industrial zone suffered a direct hit. Later, a rocket landed on a house with the residents inside, though they escaped injury.
“Israel could finish the whole story in one day,” said Shimon Biton, 75, who owns a hardware store in the market area. “It has the weapons and the intelligence. But our hands are bound, because America says ‘no.’ Gaza is packed with civilians, and the rockets are kept in their homes.”
Shulamit Amar, 40, said her 13-year-old son was terrified of the rockets, especially since one exploded in the yard behind their apartment block last year. “We raise our eyes to heaven,” she said. “Only God will help us.”